may be driven back, and they may be
made to suffer the bitterness of an enemy
near their homes.

During the American war, while
campaigning with the Confederate army, I
paid a visit to Richmond shortly after the
seven days' fighting round that city. The
Federal host, under M'Clellan, had been
driven from every position, and the capital
of the South freed, for the time, from the
beleaguering forces that had threatened it.
But at what a cost! Death and desolation
disfigured the neighbouring fields, and
scarcely a home escaped the general
mourning for those who had fallen. On arriving
at the seat of Southern government, my
first business was to secure quarters of
some kind. These I found in the Spottswood
House, a huge pile of brown stone, built in
the American fashion, with shops for the
basement story. The hall through which
I passed had more the appearance of a
ward for convalescents than the vestibule
of an hotel, for hobbling about as best
they could were numerous wounded officers
and men, victims of the late fights, some
slowly recovering from amputations, others
with arms in slings, or legs supported in
list bands from their shoulders. Many
there were with an empty trouser or flat
pinned-up sleeve, and all had sunken,
bloodless features, from which shone the
restless Southern eye. Having got housed
to my satisfaction, I started out on a
pilgrimage, accompanied by a staff-officer who
was stationed in the city.

My attention was first attracted to the
handsome plate-glass stores in Maine-
street, which, prior to the late battles, had
exhibited their poverty-stricken stocks-in-trade,
but which now, by the murderous
necessity of the times, were transformed
into temporary hospitals. Rows of tenanted
hospital couches ran down each side
of the lengthy, roomy shops. Surgeons
were actively engaged dressing the
shattered limbs and maimed bodies of the
crowded patients. Ladies might be seen,
as in the olden time, before the counters
were removed, and when the shelves were
well stored, but all they could purchase
now were the thanks and blessings of the
wounded men, upon whom they attended
with womanly devotion.

"Have you no other hospital accommodation
than such as this?" I asked my companion.

"Yes," was the reply; " but Richmond
is comparatively a small city, and after
such fighting as we have had, at our very
threshold as you may say, the buildings
erected for such purposes were found totally
insufficient, and we have had to lodge the
poor fellows as best we could, many in
private houses, and large numbers, as you
see, in these converted stores. If you like
to step in I will introduce you to the head
surgeon; he is a friend of mine."

We found the doctor at work in a
corner of the room, beside him a case of
surgical instruments, the bright steel looking
frightfully significant. At the moment
of our entrance he was employed writing
prescriptions for the dispenser, and laying
aside his memoranda-book, he at once
volunteered to accompany us round the beds.

On the first couch, before which he
paused, lay a fair-haired young fellow, with
blue eyes, staring and bright with fever,
flashing from his sunken face, a boy scarcely
in his twentieth year, and from the inscription
on the bed-head, I saw that he was
from Alabama. Seated by his side was a
lady, who had volunteered, like many others
in that room, her tender care. She was
engaged fanning away with a palmetto-
leaf the myriads of flies which abounded in
that stifling southern atmosphere. From a
pan of iced water near at hand she
occasionally took a sponge, and allowed the
cooling stream to trickle upon the lad's
swollen arm, which lay an inert and
discoloured mass upon an oilsilk-covered
cushion.

"This is a severe case of an Enfield rifle
bullet near the shoulder," remarked the
doctor. " The bone is not broken, but
shattered."

As the patient heard these words he
turned his gaze languidly towards the
surgeon, and asked, in a faint voice:

''Will you have to take it off, doctor?
It's mighty troublesome to bear with, but
I'd like to keep it for another shot or two
at them!"

In that long room there must have been
at least forty couches. Not one of them
was empty, although preparations were
being made to remove one inanimate form
that was now beyond the surgeon's science,
or any of the kindly attentions that the
nurses could offer. He must have died
but very recently, for as we passed, the
sheet had but just been turned over the
face, and the rigid outline of the shrunken
form could be traced beneath the clinging
drapery—an outline the moulding of which
was not perfect, for below the left thigh the
covering had fallen in for want of the limb
that should have supported it.